MAN SHOOTS DOG TO DEATH AFTER IT ATTACKED WOMAN, CHILDREN

A man shot and killed a dog Saturday afternoon in Santee because the animal bit his girlfriend’s daughter and attacked others, authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies responding to reports of multiple gunshots being heard in a residential neighborhood north of Santee Lakes found that the man had taken the dog into the hills near Strathmore Drive and killed it.

Sheriff’s Lt. Dave Schaller said many deputies descended on the neighborhood at 3:10 p.m. until the details of what happened became clear.

Schaller said the man told deputies the dog had been acting overly aggressive in the past few weeks and had bitten the 9-year-old girl, two neighbors and his girlfriend.

The man and his girlfriend are both Marines and from Texas, Schaller said.

“It’s certainly a bit unusual,” Schaller said.

Deputies, after consulting with county animal control officers, decided not to cite the man for any crime.

“It’s not unlawful to dispatch your own dog if it’s done in a humane manner,” he said.

As for firing a gun near a residential area, Schaller said, deputies cut him a break for “his basic ignorance of the law.”

J. Harry Jones • U-T

Lifeguards revive surfer at contest

Pacific Beach

Lifeguards performed CPR and saved a 62-year-old surfer who was taking part in a longboard contest in Pacific Beach Saturday afternoon, authorities said.

The rescue took place about 3 p.m. near Crystal Pier during the 20th annual OMBAC Surfing Classic put on by the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club.

The surfer is a local man whose name was not released.

He was in the water when he suffered some kind of medical distress and slipped off his longboard, lifeguard Lt. Andy Lerum said. Other surfers helped lifeguards get the man to shore.

He wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, but lifeguards began CPR and shocked him with an automated external defibrillator, Lerum said.

“We got him pumping again,” Lerum said. “We call this a ‘save.’ ”

The contest was halted while the man was being treated and then taken to a hospital, said Bob Adams, chairman of the OMBAC event.

Adams said the man later was in stable condition at the hospital.

Pauline Repard • U-T

Crash involves bus full of cheerleaders

Campo

Several Santee school cheerleaders were slightly hurt when the charter bus they were in was involved in an eight-vehicle, chain-reaction crash along Interstate 8 late Friday night.

A number of vehicles were in line at the Border Patrol checkpoint in Campo about 11:30 p.m. when a 40-year-old Arizona woman drove up in a Kia Sedona, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Eric Nicholas said.

“She apparently had some issues figuring out how to deactivate her cruise control and struck the vehicle ahead of her at near freeway speed,” Nicholas said.

That collision led to several more. In the middle of the queue was a charter bus containing cheerleaders from West Hills High School in Santee. They were returning from a football game in El Centro.

Nobody was seriously injured in the crash, but several of the cheerleaders were taken to a hospital for evaluation and then released.

J. Harry Jones • U-T

La Mesa man Tasered after attacking police

La Mesa

La Mesa police used a Taser to subdue a man when he tried to grab one of their guns Saturday, authorities said.

The officers went to investigate a fight at a Jackson Drive apartment complex about 4 p.m. Loren Montoya, 32, of Spring Valley, allegedly rushed one officer and fought until more officers got there. He and one officer were treated at a hospital for minor injuries before Montoya was jailed.